7 BUSINESS PREDICTIONS THAT EVERY PROJECT MANAGER MUST NOT IGNORE AS FROM 2020

Introductions

Every new calendar year is like a wrapped gift, you cannot predict what’s inside it until you open it. But if you have been following the global impact of changing technology on business, you need to pay attention to these changing developments.

A lot of surprises have been in the field of technology dating back to Y2k bug, fortunately we survived it. Technology has become a consuming monster wrapped in a gift box. It came as Internet in the 1990’s. Now, it’s cloud technology that is sneaking on us.

Gartner predicted that even though cloud computing is still in its infancy and as of 2013, it was predicted that worldwide cloud computing market is expected to exceed $25 billion by the end of 2013.

Two years later, Synergy Research Group confirmed that Amazon Web Services holds 33 percent share of the market and as of 2015; core cloud business is a $60 billion a year market.

In 2018, Canalys confirmed that cloud infrastructure spending surpassed $80 billion. A year later, Statista projected that the revenue from the global public cloud computing market is set to reach $258 billion in 2019. By 2023, Report Linker is projecting an exponential increase of $623.3 billion.

A technology that was once obscure, rose overnight and change the business landscape. It was a quiet landslide. The change is still in its infant stages and yet we are witnessing these staggering numbers.

Impact of Cloud Computing Technology

Take a look at the changes that cloud computing brought with the arrival of the Internet, data storage accessibility has improved very much with time.

Advanced technological research has reached a mind-blowing level. We dream of artificial intelligence, but right now we see a variety of it at work, schools and home.

Internet of Things (IoT) is gradually becoming part of our everyday life, with the proliferation of mobile devices in all shapes and forms.

Organizations are not sitting back and folding their arms, rather, they are now capitalizing on these advanced technologies to take productivity to the next level; as of today, mailman, Facsimile and Small Office Home Office (SOHO) with hub network are now confined to the IT Museum.

LAN, WAN and VPN technology is gradually becoming a fuzzy technology.

All in a spate of just less than two decades.

Organizations have now been saving millions in server infrastructure expenditure, reduced investment in huge overhead that maintain wide varieties of application servers.

Data backups is now being automated and replicated to more than one location in real time at a fraction of the cost.

After a careful examination of these technologies alone and the way organizations has been responding within the last ten years, I wish to alert you as a project manager to get ready for new surprises and position yourself for new and exciting developments.

This way, you will not be surprised.

The reason is because, we have reached the end of the second decade in the twentieth century, organization has come to term with all the changes and agreed that it will not stop or change, but they will need to adapt to remain relevant, so that they can position themselves for better growth through sustained competition in a new global business landscape.

The financial system has restrained itself from its cyclical self-destruction and learned from the damaging impacts of economic recessions, it will rather deal with a slow economy rather than crash it.

Business Predictions

1. Board of Director will replace CEO position, with a front man, the era of CEO’s with huge paycheck will fizzle out….as consciousness to cost cutting and customer satisfaction takes on a new understanding…

In 2019 alone many CEO’s have been voluntarily stepping down. Analyst believe it was because of the booming economy, that means they are leaving when the ovation is loudest. They will not be saddled with laying off workers while they pocket huge paychecks.

I tend to believe otherwise, that they are leaving because of the era of huge paycheck has gradually come to an end.

At a time when global enterprises are sitting on a vast wealth and not investing it, but planning to expand, deal with competition and innovate for the future. Then gradually use same to hire more skilled labor that will drive more growth and hence, more revenue.

Other pundits have moaned about the morality of this treatment within a free market economy. But to a Project Manager, it is most likely meaning there will be more projects in the coming year, but the demand will be from what is currently in vogue.

As a PM, you will need to wear more than one hat as one of your organization change agents. There will be capital to expend, hiring will be on the increase for skilled labor, the era of job economy will be limited to a few service industries.

Merger and acquisitions will come back one more time, many giant enterprises will be merging overnight because they will the strength that big numbers bring to the table, from the customer base to profit margin, everything will be very important. Project Managers will be having more roles to play in a M & A for the next 5-7 years before it fizzles out.

2. The role of CIO and COO will be expanded in the coming months as from 2020 going forward…. innovation, creativity and pace setting will increase the pressure…Board of Director will worry about leadership and branding….

The Chief Information Officer is the livewire of the IT infrastructure for the entire organization from procurement to security.

While the Chief Operating Officer is all about the entire operations from end to end. The thinking is to experiment marrying these roles, whereby the CIO will be the “mister fix it”, while the COO “runs the kitchen”.

This will create more visibility for these officers as the organization live wires, and they will be responsible for reporting to the Board of Directors. The only saving grace they will have is that they will not be a scapegoat like a CEO if something breaks.

The Board of Director will be ready to absorb the blame. More so, the economy will keep getting better, since we have cured the need to grind it to a halt.

As for project managers, you will have the glorified opportunities to work with these executives in the C-Suites, by providing all the vital information they need to get things done, to meet your organization strategic goals.

The collaboration will be so pragmatic that it will expand the value of project management to require increased business acumen, to support critical business decisions. This expectation now leads me to my third business prediction.

3. Project Managers’ requirements at the door will require the understanding of cloud technology and other relevant IT skills (Procurement, Negotiation, Security, Business Operations), more so depending on your industry …so, improve your skills as a change agent.

In the past, the requirement at the door for a project manager is usually to know how to execute projects end to end. Showcase skills for scheduling, budgeting, risk and sometimes negotiation.

A measure of waterfall, software development life cycle (SDLC), waterfall and agile methodologies.

As from 2020 going forward, every project manager opportunity will require knowing a thing or two about business, IT, cloud technology, security and potential risk in the new business era.

You will need to position yourself adequately to maximize these opportunities with these upcoming responsibilities.

Unfortunately, there are a number of project managers that may think the status quo still exist and rebuff new direction from the leadership.

These might be let go, for not being flexible to adapt to the new realization of the time.

The demand for certified skills will be on the increase because of how globalization has shaped business through technology. It will be a game of no business left behind as no business is less important!

4. Software Developers and Systems Analysts will be required to have business knowledge, no more programming and systems language only, to help business collaborate to respond swiftly to competition and increased productivity.

We started from the top, this change will also affect software developers and systems analysts.

They should not be satisfied with just staying in their cubby writing and testing codes, they will need to stand up and smell the new business in the air.

Collaboration to compete through effective brainstorming sessions to dealing with competition and innovation will be the order of the day. You might be thinking, this is too much.

Well, think again, those college dropouts hang out in their parents’ garage and crank codes and software that is fetching hundreds of thousand every week, without any organizational structure, but because they are street smarts- they have a blend of it all.

While they set the bar high for themselves how much more, someone hired to do the same work in a structure environment with many enabling infrastructure. Please think again.

Competition dynamics will create a rude awakening for many and push them in this direction of technical dexterity.

The software development will become the road and the business acumen will be the car with a driver. Remember, before you finish reading this piece, ten and twelve years old are picking software development skills from Apple stores around the globe for free.

While Microsoft is indoctrinating primary school kids with basic programming skills. So, you see, we must separate the boys from the men, when it comes to globalized business competitions – especially when it comes to the race to the top.

5. The line between Systems and Business Analysts will shrink to nothing as the expectation for productivity will surpass “I am hired to do just this” …. you will be required to wear many hats

The expectation that create a soul searching for the project manager and the software development team will also be adopted to jolt the systems and the business analysts to these new realities. Ability to wear more than one hat will matter very much. Since this is the new game.

You want to motivate your team to embrace these changes with passion. It is a journey to a land of no return, but the reward outweighs the pains.

Experience will educate you, but you need to be the captain that steer ship in the right direction.

The project manager will be required to motivate the team to continue on a constant learning path to hone a defined business skill that will add value to the organizational strategic objectives.

Please prepare your mind to be required to complete a recommended reading and be ready to apply such extracted knowledge in a short time.

It is good you are being informed ahead of time, perhaps Libby and Audible app will be your secret weapon to getting all this information digested within a short time frame.

6. Skill economy will indirectly lead to the call for reduction in 40-hour work week because of sustained efficiency and productivity with the proliferation of artificial intelligence and Internet of Things…. yet wage will keep going up…. for skilled professionals

At this point in time, many people will be confused, why this change is so sudden; moving from 40 to 35 hours.

In order to make it painless as much as possible, most organizations will evaluate their productivity and examine the laws of diminishing returns and evaluate their projected goals on a quarterly or annual basis and make some drastic decisions.

Many advance planning for work will become the responsibility assigned to you- the project manager to figure out and help implement.

These bold organizations will be requesting that their employees spent the extra 5 hours in learning a new skill that will be useful to the organization.

Within 52 weeks, an employee will be accumulating 260 hours of training (reading books, attending skills training to passing certification tests).

This way, equilibrium will be established, your organization and the employee will not feel the pain or the shock of the changes.

After a while, when 75% of the productive workforce within an organization has accumulated between 520 – 780 hours qualitative skill training, employers will be left with no choice than to start shaving these subtracted hours and converting it to increased wages.

With the acquired skills and the certified qualification, wages will tend to remain same or go up incrementally.

The new challenge most employee will face will be, how do I adjust and adapt to these new realities. Most likely, the project managers will be invited to undertake social experiments that will help reorient their workforce.

7. HR recruitment will become truly talent acquisition, because job search will be based on certified skills relevant to the business matching the technology and organizational strategic goals…HR will allow you work from anywhere…

Human Resources will be more dedicated to talent search because they will have to fish with other organizations in the same “labor waters” for the best skilled available.

They will be responsible in arranging for the requisite skills that will help the organization to be more productive and grow within a competitive climate.

In order to retain talents, don’t be surprised when you are offered all kind of nice perks to guarantee work life balance.

As a project manager, you will be pulled aside by the HR to provide insight on the skills, the right talent and the right requirements.

As a professional, you will not want to denigrate your professionalism by questioning why HR are not doing their job.

Remember things have changed, we are all now true partners in progress. One that will add value to the organization, bring about growth and reduce the burden we all shoulder.

Hopefully you will have at your disposal more sophisticated technology to predict and proffer the best solution to help your HR team. As we approach the true birth of 5G technology, expect some speed at which data will travel and grow.

In Conclusion…

After reviewing these 7 business predictions, I think I know your reaction; skeptical, crazy and perhaps you are assuming these are impossible.

Please don’t be in haste to discard aftereffects even if you don’t believe any of these predictions.

These are not prophetic sayings because they are purely based on the analysis of historical facts of the changes, we have all experienced within the last 4 decades.

I have a strong feeling the pace at which these changes will consume our society, will be sudden, that the policy makers will be scrambling to wake up to the reality that will dawn on them.

Schools and all academic institutions will feel the shock of this change, because the realities will expose a lot of things within systems created by humans. These realities in some cases may be beyond amelioration.

Ask these experienced professionals who was around in the late 60’s up the late 80’s; ask them to explain how technology changed their era, use that as a baseline to sample the current trend that we are currently experiencing.

Isolate each new technology and carefully discover how it affects you as an individual, then broaden the impact, measure, evaluate and write your predictions. You will be amazed how quickly you will arrive at similar conclusions.

Please be prepared to plug into the benefits of these business predictions by researching and continue to learn more, you will be glad you read this article. Share your predictions and how we can benefit from yours as well….